DAVID CATRON: Pelosi Outsmarted Herself on the SOTU.

By the time he entered the House chamber, it was already obvious that the national audience would very likely exceed last year’s larger-than-usual viewership for such speeches. This is not typical for the SOTU address. The normal pattern is a reasonably large audience for a president’s first address, followed by a gradual decline in public interest each year thereafter. This was certainly true for Trump’s predecessor. Tuesday evening’s speech, however, drew a larger audience than did the President’s 2018 address. According to a report in the Hill, broadcast TV numbers from Nielsen show the audience share was 10 percent over last year’s speech:

The four major broadcast outlets — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox — combined for a 16.3 overnight rating during the address Tuesday night, which could result in total viewership of approximately 49 million when final numbers, to include the cable news networks and other outlets, are in later Wednesday.

Moreover, CBS and CNN conducted polls of public reaction to Trump’s words and the vast majority of viewers liked what they heard. The CBS/YouGov poll found that 76 percent of the public approved of the address, including 97 percent of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of Independents. And a majority of viewers agreed that the President accomplished one of his primary goals for the address — improving national unity. According to CBS, “Fifty-six percent of Americans who watched tonight feel the president’s speech will do more to unite the country.” On specific issues, an unambiguous majority of viewers agreed with the President.

It isn’t just that Trump had the stronger arguments (although he did), or that the Democrats behaved badly (although they did). Almost just as important — and as subtext, probably the most important element — is that Trump looked like he was having fun up there.

That’s no small thing, especially after eight years of Obama, who never looked like he enjoyed these things (because he admittedly didn’t), and eight years of Bush, who wasn’t often very good at them.